At 3:40 PM 4/5/95 -0700, Palmer, Lew (UCI) wrote:
>< - MOWOG - An Anacronym (sp?) for MOrris WOlsey mG,
Well, technically it's just "acronym," when you mean a word made
up from initials, like SOL or NASA or PCMCIA (which stands
for People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms, of
course, and thank you for asking).
But I *love* the convolution with anachronism that "anacronym"
suggests. An anachronism, of course, is anything which is appears
in a time other than that in which it belongs.
In many ways, our cars are anachronisms, still in our time when
the world into which they were built has ceased to exist. An M.G.
in 1995 is like Don Quixote riding to tilt with windmills in an
age of muskets and mercenaries. It's something that has become
unstuck in time, something out of place in a world of uniform,
featureless transportation pods.
So combining acronym with anachronism to get anachronym (if
I may be allowed a little Greeking of the text, heh) is in fact the
perfect word, not only for MOWOG, but also for M.G. And TR,
and AC, and for that matter ALFA (which of course stands either
for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili, or Always Looking
For Another), the latest in a series of defunct automakers whose
products excite me beyond a level that metal, rubber, glass and
petroleum really probably should.
>Also the name of my cat, if anyone cares.
Oh no, don't get me started on the naming of cats...
--Scott "It isn't just one of your holiday games" Fisher
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